A Hobby blog about wargaming, miniature painting, board gaming and other musings.
Why magpie, I hear you ask? Simple: I'm constantly being distracted by new shiny things. Come in, make yourself at home and feel free to leave a comment. Caw!

Saturday, 14 July 2012

A mystery and interesting hobby news

First up, things might be quiet here in terms of me posting recent painting, there is a good reason: I've a new mystery project. All will be revealed when the painting is nearly finished. In the meantime here are some hints:

-it's a skirmish game using an intriguing new ruleset.

-it will be a narrative campaign (Samulus, Gharak, I hope to play through it with both of you at least)

-it was inspired by a recent issue of Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy magazine

-half the work is already done with minis I've already got and painted.

-the minis are primarily from one of my favourite manufacturers.

-of the minis I've bought, most are also useful to another period I often play (bonus value for money)

Any guesses from my more attentive readers?

Hopefully not as much of a headache as this causes

Anyway, I will still beaver away at my more public projects and post them up as and when I get stuff finished.

In hobby-related news, Tamsin highlighted controversial announcements by two relatively big players in the historical Wargames market - Battlefront and Slitherine. The former seem to be getting a GW-esque superiority complex and are banning the use of non-Battlefront miniatures at all official Flames of War tournaments. While it doesn't affect me directly, I think this is one step too far to . I wonder what the backlash will be. I did have some respect for what FOW did in terms of making WWII more accessible, but can't quite understand their logic to preserve market share amongst what is by-all-accounts a relatively small number of tournament gamers.

Next up, Slitherine, (publishers of Field of Glory which I've eyed up a few times times) have announced that the long-awaited second version of their ancients and medieval rules will be digital-only, with no option to print a PDF. While I can see it plays to their strengths as a digital publisher and it could improve the rules and balance through easy application of updates, it has caused quite a stir. While I do generally applaud innovation, there are clear issues of portability (not everyone owns a tablet or small laptop) which might seriously damage the prospects of V.2 being used as widespread tournament rules. I myself prefer hardcopy rules if possible, I've got Gruntz only in soft copy and must say it is a bit of a pain to navigate even when gaming at home. What do you think?

7 comments:

Great post Phil - good to see other gamers' take on the two decisions. I can understand the logic of both, even if I do disagree with them.

What is telling is the difference in how the companies reacted to the backlash. Slitherine responded in a mature, open and honest manner; Battlefront responded with a mixture of outright, hostility, childishness, bluster and even some outright lies. Guess which company is getting the most bad PR from it?

I've not seen the Battlefront response myself, but I did read the Slitherine one. They seemed most reasonable, though I flinched at their hyperbole around 'a revolution in wargaming' as in their original post.

I have a FOW army in the building (the armour has been languishing at the airbrush for months) and must say I'm not really bothered but this entirely because I have zero intention of ever playing in a tournament. However, I think Tamsin has it when she comments on the way they've handled it, which is extremely poorly. It smacks of 'I'm taking my ball in now'. If I was tournament player I'd be furious, as it is, I'm just a little bemused and have a lower opinion of the company. All too reminiscent of GW's strategies, if they start pricing according to 'gamepower' then they'll have completely lost their way.